I've been searching for something that I don't have to fix to make work as well as satisfy my g/f's whims on a Linux system.
I tried the Desktop edition you offer and it might have done the job but wine isn't available.
Vbox would have filled the one need but I wanted her to be able to use things installed with wine while her xp was doing it's job from vbox at the same time.
I also saw that after something like the nvidia driver/ modules were installed, naturally a reboot is required.
The reboot starts but hangs partway through and one ends up with just a blinking cursor.
Use of the power button relieves the hang but the box then goes into shut down.

Try Ultimate edition 2.3 (ubuntu-9.04)
it has everything, wine, playonlinux,etc and is stable

Ultimate-edition 2.4 is out, but I would wait before trying any 9.10

http://ultimateedition.info/

Looks good in the YouTube video.
Considering giving it a look but don't hold any hopes as it's Gnome.
She's a battle hardened XP vet and not subject to to many changes all at once.

Actually 2.3 & 2.4 come with both gnome and kde
and you could install xfce or lxde too